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Welcome to the School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Professor Kanes K RajahDEAN
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
'With all this technological development, what is its impact on business?'
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Context•Technology has to be relevant to the human condition
•Throughout the world, and particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, many of the poorest people are farmers.
• Nearly 75 percent of those subsisting on $1 a day live in rural areas,
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Estimates show that majority of the poor will remain rural until 2040 (Ravallion et al. 2007)
•At the same time, agriculture is a major source of income and employment in these regions: •It accounts for 34 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and •64 percent of the labour force in sub-Saharan Africa.
Poverty alleviation is therefore directly linked to agriculture. Whether in the form of new crops, improved breeds of animal, or changes in agricultural practices and crop choice, technology has the potential to sharply increase yields, reduce spoilage and risk, and improve the nutritional quality of food.
Jack, B. Kelsey. 2013. “Constraints on the adoption of agricultural technologies in developing countries.” Literature review, Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative, J-PAL (MIT) and CEGA (UC Berkeley).
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Decade Technology
Post 2WW Rebuilding of economies
50s Automation
60s Robotics/Genetics
70s Computerisation
80s Information Technology
90s Cloning technology
2000 Genome mapping
Future Convergence
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Mobile computing •Portable computers and smartphones are destined to widely populate farm tractor cabs, pickups and offices in the future.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•4G networks •Farmers frustrated by lack of access to higher-speed Internet services could find themselves in the Internet fast lane in the next couple of years, because of 4G (fourth generation) cellular communications networks.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Telematics •Imagine pulling up on your mobile computer a map that shows where all your vehicles are operating and their fuel levels, how much product has been applied or how much crop harvested, and even if a piece of equipment is ready to break down
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Nitrogen utilization •The extreme price fluctuations of nitrogen fertilizer have not been lost on seed companies. They currently are developing corn hybrids with the ability to better use available nitrogen.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture
•Herbicide-tolerance traits •Herbicide-tolerance trait technology will be a big player in corn and soybean production for many years, especially with the appearance of two new traits coming to the market soon. Dicamba- and 2,4-D-tolerant traits are in the final stages of development and will offer producers an alternative to Roundup Ready and Liberty Link.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Mini-chromosome technology •Corn trait technology could be in for a revolution, and it’s coming in a small package. Mini-chromosome technology promises to deliver multiple stacked traits in a single corn hybrid faster and more efficiently than today’s stacking technologies. The technology, developed by Syngenta and Chromatin, constructs in the lab a new mini-chromosome that contains a given trait or traits.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Highly efficient ethanol production •“Ethanol biorefineries operate in a constant state of change,” states the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA). With technologies such as fractionation and biomass gasification, ethanol producers have greatly reduced the amount of fossil fuel energy needed to produce ethanol and distillers grains.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Drought-resistance traits •The decades of work to develop drought-resistant plants are finally producing results. The first corn hybrids marketed for drought conditions are now being sold. These hybrids use natural gene selection and are targeted to the western Corn Belt where water is a key limiting factor. Companies promise yields will be more stable with these hybrids.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Biologicals •Expect to see more biological pest control and growth enhancements as farmers look for more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient crop inputs. Advanced technologies, such as high-throughput screening, are also helping companies to quickly multiply beneficial organisms, thus driving development of new biologicals.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•RFID technology •Radio frequency identification, or RFID, has been widely used in livestock to identify animals. But global futurist Jack Uldrich says use of the tagging technology will expand to crops as the technology gets exponentially better, faster and cheaper.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Soil and crop sensors •More farm equipment today is being outfitted with smart sensors that can read everything from plant health and water needs in the crop to nitrogen levels in the soil. The sensors then enable on-the-go application of inputs based on real-time field conditions
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Technologies that are changing agriculture•Electric drive systems •Someday farmers will see tractors, sprayers and other farm vehicles generate electric power to run auxiliaries and attachments. This move will occur as farm vehicles become larger and more complex. It takes extra engine power to operate all these extra features.
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Technology type Specific examplesHigher yields Improved varieties
Micro-irrigationLower risk Drought-resistant crops
Weather insuranceBetter quality Certification schemes
Storage technologiesLower costs Animal-driven plowing
Nitrogen-fixing cropsReduce externalities Reduced till agriculture
Terracing
Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative, ATAISelected examples (2013) Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
EXAMPLES FROM THE
AGE OF DATA
• Technologies the Royal Agricultural University is familiar with and working on.
Robotic Milking
First attempts 1989Prototyped 1991
Licensed 1993- 1995First sales 1998
10% of market 2012
Breath Sensing Milk Progesterone
Analyser Lameness Detection Calving Detection Rumen pH Monitoring
Rumen pH BolusInvented in 2003 in UK
First publication: Mottram et al., 2008Low pH means high digestible energy
Risk reduction by measuring sub-clinical problemsImproves milk yields AND cow health
Commercialised by 5 companies worldwideRevising the diagnosis of SARA and ketosis
Rumen pH BolusInserted by mouthRetained in Reticulo-rumenData downloaded by radioUploaded to internetAnalysed and interpreted
A high yielding herd
Low pH but regular feed pattern with cows not eating at night
Same herd after a feed change
After a feed change, pH is higher and cows eat more at night
Temperature Measurement
Each drop in temperature is caused by a drinking event, five a day is good, something was wrong here, it seems the cows did not have close access to water at grass.
Lameness detection
Best indicator of mobility score is the time to walk at own pace between two points when not impeded
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Challenges - external
1. Soil management2. Precision agriculture 3. Nutrient retention (pollution prevention)4. Precision livestock farming 5. Animal health and welfare with increased
yield6. Managing Biodiversity7. Technology uptake
How to get ideas implemented and used
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Challenges in Dairying•Management
Sensors and controls
•Housing Re-engineer concrete Lighting and ventilationRe-group cows
•SilageHarvesting is outperforming storageAnalysis is inaccurateStorage and extraction is poor
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Challenges - internal1. Complexity of the external challenges2. Low impact of engineers in policy and
funding3. Recruitment and retention of staff4. Lack of major UK players in Ag Eng5. Keeping up with changes in technology -
CPD6. Routes to market uptake
• 7 years from conception to launch• 20 years from launch to product
maturity
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
So what does this mean? Farming has moved on….
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
What are our skills needs
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
CYBERNATICS“control of any system using technology”
•Cybernetics is relevant to the study of systems, such as mechanical, physical, biological, cognitive, and social systems.
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
CYBERNATICS
•Management decision making
•Decisions are being made by robots
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
CYBERNATICS
•Management decision making
•Decisions are being made by robots
•Cows in milking parlours are a fine example.•Cows coming into the milking parlour are detected, milked and sent on their way by robots!
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Role of Business SchoolsIn Agri Tech Strategy
Royal Agricultural University facing the challenge with:
I. MBA in International Food and Agribusiness
II. MBA in Advanced Farm Management
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
The skills -
• there are myriad skills and knowledge involved in producing food, and managing land and the environment
• a mixture of traditional ‘further’ and ‘higher’ education
• a balance between broad and specialised education
• innovation, entrepreneurship, diversification, knowledge exchange are key skills
Have we got the mixture and delivery of knowledge and skills training right?
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
The people-
•the perception is that the industry will need significant numbers of new entrants
•they will need to come from non-traditional and traditional backgrounds
•but it must be attractive and deemed by the entrant to meet their needs and career aspirations
•there would appear to be increasing numbers of applicantsNew entrants to farming are needed and will come from a range of backgrounds
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
"that part of the holding of a farmer or landowner which pays best for cultivation is the small estate within the ring fence of his skull"
Charles Dickens, 1868, in 'All The Year Round', following a visit to the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
THANK YOU
School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Professor Dr Kanes K RajahBSc. MSc PhD PGCAP, FHEA, CMgr FCMI
RAU Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation